Governments are confronted with crises that may spread beyond national borders and trigger significant economic knock-on effects. Managing crises is a key responsibility for governments, which have a crucial role to play to strengthen the resilience of their population, communities and critical infrastructure networks.

The paper highlights the changing landscape of crises with which governments are confronted today, discussing new approaches to deal with both traditional and novel crises. The paper invites a reflection on how best governments can adapt to change while still maintaining capabilities to deal with more classic crises.

It concludes with identifying five cross-cutting issues in crisis management where government should pay attention when framing their policies and practices: an overall crisis governance framework, the role of science and expertise, leadership issues, the governance of response networks, and international cooperation. International exchange of experiences among governments and the development of shared best practices are core objectives for the OECD High Level Risk Forum under which the paper was prepared.